he dreams he's awake
by The Dream Whisperer
Summary: "Words are nothing. Actions are everything. Arthur is a man who can reassure an old woman even as he shoots her in the head." Arthur and Saito. About a bullet in one's lung and a noose on one's throat. Oh, and forgiveness. Not really ArthurSaito.


**he dreams he's awake**

**Characters/Pairing:** Arthur, and Saito, with implied Arthur/Saito. Something of the sort.  
**Rating:** PG  
**Words:** 1225  
**Summary:** "_Words are nothing. Actions are everything. Arthur is a man who can reassure an old woman even as he shoots her in the head." _Arthur and Saito. About a bullet in one's lung and a noose on one's throat. Oh, and forgiveness.

Blame has never been a game that Arthur likes to play. There's no use in it; none when he would rather make up for his mistakes. Apologies are just empty words in the end- _I'm sorry, I'm sorry_- and what Arthur knows about words is that in the end they all become nothing. The most they become is the frost that appears in front of one's mouth when one speaks, and even that happens only during winter, and nowhere else.

That's why Arthur likes the weight of paper more. He likes smoothing his hands through the words, and he thinks that if his hands are not callused from holding a gun, a knife; from holding the countless weapons he knows how to kill with (he lies—he can count them: a hundred twenty seven, yesterday; today? who knows), he will be able to read the words imprinted on the paper, read the tiny little bumps that slide over his skin when he touches it.

So he never really apologises to Saito. It's his fault that the other man had gotten shot - he should have known better. And Arthur had _known_, the moment he had said Saito's name- he had known he had gotten shot because a man like him is terribly familiar with the scent of blood. It's so near, so thick and fresh and even the rain (_fucking_ Yusuf and his _fucking_ _champagne—_) can't undercut the smell.

Metal and red. Eames always says that Arthur has no imagination, but he smells in colour, and he remembers in Technicolor. Never black and white, never sepia. (Those are far too cliché, and happens only in movies.) But stark colours, as in someone had up-ended an entire goddamn paint bucket into the picture until everything is so bright he can scream.

He can't forget how Saito's blood looks like, bright red against his grey suit.

Forgiving himself isn't something that's for a man like him either. Paradox, paradox; if you don't apologise then don't you already admit you're not to blame? Or perhaps one might say—_of course_, because if you don't blame yourself, you can't be forgiven.

But that's not true, in the end. He never apologises but that's because his hands are moving too fast for his mouth to keep up, his mind is rapid-firing like a machine gun. Words are nothing. Actions are everything. Arthur is a man who can reassure an old woman even as he shoots her in the head.

(When he had hear Saito cough in that hotel room, had seen his blood fucking _hover_ in the air- Arthur moves, moves, _moves_ like the lightning itself had lit up in his blood.

That's why when they resurfaced in the first level, he goes for Saito first.)

He lingers by Saito's side even after the Fischer job. Saito has smiled at him, edges of his smile blunted, weighted down, and Arthur can see the age in his eyes. He reminds Arthur of Cobb and Mal when they first pulled themselves out of Limbo, that immeasurable _exhaustion_ that living for so long and waking up to realise that you have to live it all over again—that sort of indescribable exhaustion.

Waking up and realising that no one in the world will be able to remember what you had experienced in there, deep in your own mind. Waking up and _knowing_ for the fact that you can't say- _hey, remember the time when_—

because that doesn't exist. There is no _when_; nothing to be remembered. Except for, maybe, the memories inside your own mind, which are already fading like one's breath in winter.

Saito has changed and Arthur knows it's because of him. So that's why he cancels his flight back out to Boston and follows Saito back into his car. That's why he keeps himself by Saito's side, lingering like a shadow, watching as Saito tries to fit an old soul to the skin of a young man. When he keeps his spine straight and his eyes steely but there's still his hands—subtly curved inwards, as if his wrists no longer wish to bear the weight of straightened fingers.

Arthur watches, and he does not apologise, or even say why he is here. Saito understands, and he does not forgive, nor does he ask for Arthur's reasons.

They already know, from each other Saito's tells are in the corners of his eyes, in the edges of his mouth, in his expressive fingers. It's in the way he moves, the roll of his shoulders, the tilt of his head (_fifty-six degrees imply curiosity, sixty-one degrees imply disdain—_) and Arthur watches and Arthur stays and it's almost like—

_Let me find a way to forgive myself_.

Myself.

Because Arthur knows, knows that in the depth of Saito's kindness (like a knife, sharpened from Limbo), and in the weave of that man's honour and pride—Saito has never blamed him in the first place.

_Perhaps I should have dodged a little faster_, Saito might say. Arthur traces his own words on paper, neat and small, and he knows that it's only his perception of Saito's words. The handwriting keeps him grounded to reality, because Saito's script is something entirely different. Larger, flowing. Disregarding all the lines and margins that the book has set down for him. Making his own rules, as usual.

He does not play blaming games, but it seems that Arthur still feels guilt. Guilt heavy and tight as it winds itself around his throat. Like a noose. Like a death sentence. Like a bullet to the lung. Like blood at the back of the throat.

Perhaps he's just waiting for Saito to reach out and loosen the noose.

Arthur always pays for his mistakes by doing all that he can to succeed, to do better, so that the gravity of the mistake is lessened. That's his apology. That's his repayment. That's his "_sorry, I won't do it again_".

(And he won't.)

But what does he do, when the weight of his mistake is worth forty years of loneliness? What does he do, when he seeks to claw for forgiveness from a man who only laughs and turn away?

And wait for him to claw and fight at the noose himself, until his fingers break and bleed and his hands ache?

Saito, Arthur thinks, has never been a man kind enough to hand out salvations easily. He does not simply smile, and tell you everything is alright.

He's not the kind of man. Not even Limbo can change that.

Yet—despite that, Saito has already reached over and brushed his hands over Arthur's shoulders, relieving him of the burden of guilt without a word. But his hands stop there, and do not reach out a hand to tug him back up. So Arthur has remained there, knees bent, forehead to the floor, waiting, feeling his breath being choked, slowly.

Really—he has never been particularly good at being selfless. Not even when he pretends to be, in order to feel himself.

This is Arthur's forgiveness:

When Saito's voice calls him again, low and amused, warmth tangled at the edges of his lips, in the inward curl of his hands (_beckoning_, Arthur thinks, and he wonders how he has read the signals wrong).

Arthur stands up, and goes to him.

_End_


End file.
